The present disclosure relates to determining operational capabilities of mobile devices in mobile information systems and to providing appropriately formatted content to mobile devices. In a mobile information system, subscribers register with a wireless service provider to receive various types of content from the service provider on their mobile devices. The subscriber's mobile device may include a resident interactive multimedia application environment that includes capabilities for displaying graphics, video, animation, audio, and the like. Examples of such interactive multimedia application environments are the different versions of the Adobe® Flash®-based platform. Content provided to mobile devices equipped with such application environments are sometimes delivered in executable file formats such as the precisely described SWF (small web format) binary vector graphics format. SWF provides a compact, TAG-based, easily extendible format that supports streaming, bitmap and vector graphics, and scripting.
The operational capabilities of individual subscribing devices in a mobile information system may vary. For example, devices may have varying screen sizes, color palettes, video and/or audio playback capabilities and the like. Thus, the device may be incapable of using some content available for delivery to the device.